IT'S NO LONGER ENOUGH for a perfume to make you smell nice in the summer. Benefit's B-Spot ($38, Sephora.com) — a gentle, fruity scent — claims to awaken our female sensuality when applied to erogenous zones like the backs of knees and behind the ears.
Testing found that it will not cause tinkling theme music to accompany your every step, nor ignite passion in every passing male. But it smells lovely.
ELIZABETH ARDEN'S Green Tea eau de toilette was the first perfume this writer ever bought after smelling it in one of those magazine inserts.
True story! Now the red-door ladies have come out with a new version, Green Tea Lotus ($37, Elizabetharden.com), which takes the preppy version and sexes it up with a spicier hit and a subtle sophistication that lurks in the background.
It's pretty much the scent version of your favorite work outfit: No, you can't wear it every day, but you feel just a bit better when you have it on.
Written by Express contributor Kristen Page-Kirby
ESTEE LAUDER does what it does very well. It's been making variations of its Pure White Linen fragrance ($35, Esteelauder.com) since it premiered in 1978, and it's not musty yet. It's classic and lovely, in a Park Avenue sort of way. There are hints of grapefruit and ginger that fade into a gentle cedar scent, with just a hint of freshly printed money. This is a perfume for classy women — or those who just want to smell classy.
Estee Lauder has added a few fun elements to its traditional scent, perhaps to cash in on the funky fashion sense that will have overtaken women drunk on the shopping montages of "Sex and the City: The Movie." But the fragrance can't really change its stripes. Luckily, it was nice to begin with.
THANKS TO OUR rather provincial existence and the fact that our request to travel for "research" was so unfairly denied, we can't tell you for certain whether the light and fruity fragrance of Elizabeth Arden's Mediterranean Breeze ($58, department stores) does smell like its name.
However, we can confirm that the scent does illicit generous compliments from the opposite sex. They just would have been better if said in an Italian accent (and heard while we were sipping white wine while trolling along exotic shores). Hmph.
Written by Erin Clements Rushing
FINDING A NEW perfume can be intimidating at best and nauseating at worst. But Sephora's new Scentsa Fragrance Finder (Tysons Corner Center and Georgetown stores) makes it that much easier to avoid sensory overload.
Its new touch-pad screens provide easily accessible information on anything you could ever imagine about perfume.
Written by Express contributor Danielle Parnass
IN D.C., A LAND sans waterfalls, where can one go to smell the natural wonder? No need to stick your nose in a thousand tons of rushing water just yet. Try a perfume that encompasses fragrant falls. L'Eau D'Issey by Issey Miyake ($60, Sephora.com) has a truly aquatic appeal. It's light enough to wear at work or at home. Floral scents — including lotus, freesia, carnations and white lilies — add to Issey's feminine bouquet.
It's the perfect accompaniment to the upcoming summer dress season. L'Eau D'Issey isn't all innocence though. Like waterfalls, there's a hint of danger. Woody and musky undertones give this perfume a sexy tone that pairs well with sexy stilettos.
Written by Express contributor Robyn Mincher
APRIL 20 HAS COME and gone, but you can still celebrate its patron herb, legally. Fresh Cannabis Rose perfume ($75, Fresh.com) smells like roses, not pot. It's a darker scent that makes us think of Miss Havisham's overgrown garden.
So, go ahead — inhale. And while the bath and shower gel ($28) may raise some eyebrows, we'll have you know that cannabis seed oil is known for its nourishing properties. Plus, you won't even have to put a towel under the bathroom door.
Written by Express contributor Stephanie Jones
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN those people in the J. Crew catalogs, with their floppy hats and their madras belts and their perfect bodies that apparently lack sweat glands, and think, "I want to smell like that?" Well, those people are probably wearing Ralph Lauren Romance Eau Fraiche ($72, Ralphlauren.com), which smells like rich people.
It's vaguely floral and not too committed to anything. But, remember, those people in the J. Crew catalogs aren't happy because THEY AREN'T REAL. If they were real, they would probably be incredibly depressed about how boring their perfume is. This scent is pretty but dull.
OK, SO YOU KNOW how sometimes you'll be on a date with a guy and he's pretty boring and you're not sure why you like him, but then you realize it's because he smells really good? Has that happened to other people? Certain men just have this scent that's expensive and woodsy and delicious.
Apparently, it turns out they've all been wearing women's perfume, because that's the scent of Yves Saint Laurent's Elle ($61, Sephora.com) — upscale, a little outdoorsy and manly. Definitely for the woman who wants to send a Katharine Hepburn gender-bending vibe. Just don't let anyone see the girly pink bottle.
AROMATHERAPY HASN'T EVER rung true for us, for whom the sense of smell has but two purposes: to detect the presence of food and to detect whether milk has gone bad.
But we're willing to buy that, for some, a hearty spray of Bath & Body Works' lightly sweet (and slightly cloying) vanilla-chamomile Sleep Pillow Mist ($10) could seem soothing, especially if one's bedroom has an unpleasant odor, perhaps because one owns a territorial cat.
Its companion, Sleep Body Lotion ($13), is similarly light; we enjoyed the bracing lavender chamomile.
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